Save Article

Venezuela’s Creditors Are Cutting Its Crude-Oil Lifeline

As President Maduro competes in a Sunday election in which he seems likely to prevail, ConocoPhillips and others target the country’s oil shipments

By

Kejal Vyas in Caracas and

Rebecca Elliott in Houston

May 16, 2018 2:50 p.m. ET

Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, may well retain power after Sunday’s presidential election. But his government faces a mounting threat from something he can’t control: creditors targeting the oil shipments that provide nearly all the country’s foreign income.

A series of court orders in recent days has authorized U.S. oil giant ConocoPhillips to seize as much as $2.6 billion in Venezuelan oil from Dutch Caribbean islands as compensation for assets that Venezuela’s Socialist government expropriated from the company in...